Smurfit Kappa delivers over 40% reduction in CO2 emissions

Forest certification is one of the few tools that can directly connect the consumer to the forest. It enables each of us to make a difference to the world’s forests through buying certified products. We are reaching out to consumers to show that forest certification is about so much more than only trees – and online campaigns are an increasingly important aspect of this work. In the past year, we have been reaching out to, interacting with, and hearing from people around the world through a number of online communication campaigns. The campaign to our 20th anniversary kicked off last July. After a soft launch at the beginning of 2019, the “year of celebration” began the day after PEFC’s anniversary on 30 June. It was on this day back in 1999 when European small-forest owners came together to create PEFC – an international forest certification system that had their needs at heart.

The Forest Stewardship Council recently developed a new case study exploring how Kimberly-Clark first started sourcing FSC fiber, the logic for putting the FSC label on its iconic products, and how the actions the company took helped reshape its industry. “Sustainability has become table stakes for our types of products,” said Andy Clement, Kimberly-Clark Professional Vice President of Sales, explaining the changes he’s seen. The case study highlights that FSC can be an important part of a communications and marketing strategy, in addition to helping achieve strategy objectives and mitigate supply chain risk. Once the work to source FSC-certified products has been done, it just makes sense to tell customers about the effort and why it matters.

Stora Enso has launched a new operating model at its logging sites in Finland to improve the vitality and biodiversity of forests. In practice, this is done by reducing the density of planted spruce from 1,800 seedlings per hectare to 1,600 seedlings per hectare. This will increase mixed-species forests, which is one of the overarching objectives of Stora Enso’s biodiversity programme and part of the actions both in Finland and Sweden. A mixed forest is defined as a forest in which the main tree species does not exceed 75% of the growing stock. It may consist of coniferous trees (such as spruce or pine), broadleaved trees (such as birch), or a mixture of both. These kinds of forests are the environments where biodiversity prospers: especially broadleaved trees create vital habitats for many endangered species. Currently, broadleaves are a minority in boreal forests, which is why concrete actions are needed. As a new endeavor, forestry operations in Finland have expanded their biodiversity programme with the plan to decrease the density of spruce seedlings. Unlike many other tree species, spruce thrives also in the shadow. This means that when planting density is reduced, the spruce seedlings will let in more sunlight and thus create better conditions for other natural tree species, such as pine and birch. Forests that consist of diverse tree species are also more adaptive to the changes and risks posed by climate change..